What's in our vaccines?

Name of Vaccine	No. of Ingredients	Benign Ingredients	Toxic Ingredients	Limited info
Polio	9	Vero cells, M 199, calf bovine, phenoxyethanol, neomycin, Eagle MEM modified medium	Formaldehyde, streptomycin, polymoxin B	M-199
DTaP	15	Glutaraldehyde, Dimethyl-Beta-Cyclodextrin, Ammonium Sulfate, Aluminum Hydroxide and Polysorbate 80 (Tween 80)	All of them are toxic in high quantities.	Fenton medium containing a bovine extract, modified Latham medium derived from bovine casein, modified Latham medium derived from bovine casein
MMR 2 (Measles, Mumps, Rubella)	13	All	Only toxic if taken in high quantities: amino acids, vitamins	Chick embryo cell culture, W1-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts
HIB	12	Sodium Chloride, sucrose, saline, lactose	Modified Mueller and Miller Medium, Formaldehyde, lactose (if intolerant)	Synthetic Mediums, Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate
Hepatitis B		Yeast protein, mineral salts, dextrose, soy peptone,	Formaldehyde, Sodium Hydrogen Phosphate Dihydrate, Disodium Phosphate Dihydrate, Aluminum Hydroxide (when combined with kidney failure), Sodium Chloride Potassium Aluminum Sulfate Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate Sulfate Amino Acids Phosphate Buffer
Hepatitis A	16	Formalin, MRC-5 human diploid cells, aluminum hydroxide	Sodium chloride, sodium borate, aminoglycoside antibiotics, neomycin	Amorphous Aluminum Hydroxyphosphate sulfate
Varicella (Chickenpox)	15	Sucrose, hydrolized gelatin	urea, neomycin, monosodium L-glutamate, sodium phosphate dibasic, potassium phosphate monobasic, potassium chloride, EDTA (Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid)	Human embryonic lung cell cultures, guinea pig cell cultures, human diploid cell cultures (W1-38), human diploid cell
HPV	10	Vitamins, carbohydrates, L-Histidine is a main amino acid needed in your body.	AAHS has been found to be a neurotoxin. Polysorbate 80 is toxic upon skin contact.	Sodium borate, mineral salts, vitamins,

Some questions that come to mind when looking at the table above are:
- Who researches these ingredients?
- What if someone has allergies to these ingredients?
- How many people experience side effects?
- How much is "toxic"? Consider age and weight.

Great TED Talks: Do Schools Kill Creativity?

What makes a great TED talk? To answer this question, I watched the most popular TED talk of all time, "Do Schools Kill Creativity" with speaker Ken Robinson.

This TED talk is the most popular TED talk of all time because it uses comedy to draw and interact with the audience and speaks about a subject that almost all people will relate to: education. Robinson is obviously greatly engaged with his audience, passionate about the topic of education and creativity. He proposes that a way to a better future is by changing our education system so that it reflects creativity and not being correct all the time. He uses anecdotes and jokes to keep his audience engaged and then uses those to transition into what he is there to talk about. 

At the beginning, he just starts out with jokes and a hypothetical scenario. He uses jokes that people, especially ones in education, would relate to. Then he moves on by addressing his main points, balancing each with an anecdote that relates to it. He ends by stressing his message, comparing the problems of global climate change to the ever growing problems of our faulty education system. 

Science Assesment #7 Revamp

To recap our knowledge of ecology and environmental issues, the students in N.E.W. all had to take a multiple choice test. To further learn about the topics we did not score as well in, each group was assigned to find two videos that let us take a deeper dive learning.

Fossil Fuels
One topic we did not fully understand was fossil fuels. To learn more about fossil fuels, we used the below video posted by Earth: The Operator's Manual, a show about the environment on PBS.

Fossil fuels are powerful but an inefficient resource. Natural gas, coal, and oil are made from the carbon and energy in plants over the process of millions of years. Plants store carbon for energy, so after millenia, the dead matter of these plants that still contains carbon is put into the ground. Putting all of these carbon molecules under intense heat and pressure makes energy dense fuel such as oil, carbon and natural gas. Each form of fossil fuel comes from different conditions of heat and pressure.

Heterotrophs, Autotrophs, Phototrophs, and Chemotrophs
The second subject we were all confused about was the labeling of autotrophs and phototrophs. The below video by Biology Professor goes into detail about these terms and how they relate to each other. The biology professor has a Ph.D in Microbiology and Immuniology.

Biotic factors that obtain their carbon from organic sources are called heterotrophs. Others take it in through environmental carbon and are called autotrophs. Organisms can also be categorized by their energy sources. Organisms that get energy from their sunlight are phototrophs. Other organisms cannot do this and use inorganic chemicals and are called chemotrophs. All organisms need both carbon and energy so these categories can be combined. There are four categories, photoautotrophs (plants, algae), photoheterotrophs (certain types of bacteria), chemoautotrophs (extremophiles), chemoheterotrophs(animals).

Death Penalty

This fact sheet describes recent statistics of the number of executions in the U.S. since 1976.
Here are some of the most interesting facts that we learned from this fact sheet:

1) Criminals with mental retardation or illnesses cannot be put on death row.



2) There are different rates of execution depending on the race of the victim/s.


3) The highest number of executions are in the South.



Using the information presented along with additional information present in the fact sheet, it can be seen that cases where the victims are white will more likely lead to a death penalty. It can also be concluded that cases in which the suspect is white will more likely lead to an execution even though there is an equal chance for the suspect to be put on death row.

One question I have after reading this fact sheet is why the northeast has the least amount of murder rates and executions in the entire country.

Unit Assessment Reflection: Environmental Reflection

Source

Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc: it is us.
-Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth 

These few words from the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, help bold the damage us humans have wasted on the environment. Throughout this unit, I have learned about how humans have affected our environment and ecosystem through reading and my own research, and have attempted to combat it with a solution to one of many environmental problems: human waste.

Research Paper: A Solution to Municipal Waste

Once we settled into our environmental unit, one of the first things we did was begin our research papers. Our research papers were about an environmental topic of our choosing, which we had to research the causes and effects of, then design an innovative solution to combat this problem. The problem I chose was municipal landfill waste and its constant growth.

EPA: Source

This is a problem because landfills feed into carbon and methane emissions (as can be seen above, municipal landfills account for 20% of methane emissions). This leads to the creation of nearly 89 million metric tons of methane in the US alone. Now, this methane comes from plastics and compostables being put into the municipal landfill, decomposing and producing these greenhouse gasses. I go into further detail about this problem in my Research Paper, but that is the basic idea of the paper. Writing this paper not only taught me more about the subject I was learning about, but helped me better convey my ideas through an informational and formal text, gathering evidence from credible sources. 

The Sixth Extinction

After doing all of this research, we all got to learn more about other detrimental environmental problems by reading the Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. The book discusses the impact of humans on our world, and how the world has had many mass extinctions, but there might be another one directly caused by humans. This extinction will lead to a giant decrease in biodiversity and the overall quality of our world. Even if we humans survive, many won't. We acidify the ocean, take down forests in favor of our own space, ruin the atmosphere and many more things to cause there to be less livable conditions for species, meaning less species as a whole. We humans have always been this way, starting out by killing off hundreds of species of megafauna and the human-like Neanderthal.

Example of Sketchnotes (See English Notebook for more) 

While I read the book I took these sketchnotes to help me keep track of the ideas said. I participated in group discussion and asked questions about how this mass extinction may affect us. Reading this book made me connect different ecological problems and realize they all have a giant effect on our environment and biodiversity. It used my English skills as a reader and analyzer and furthered my ecological knowledge. 

Environmental Project

To finish off our environmental unit, we created a model of the solution we came up with during our research paper. Our model was of a garbage can that has three compartments, one for recyclables, one for trash and one for compostables. In the original concept there would be a sensor at the front that would be able to detect the molecular makeup of the object being thrown away, then open up the compartment it corresponds to. Then it would automatically spin the compost bin and wash off the recyclables in the recycle bin every 30 minutes or so. 

During the process of this project, Isaac and I harnessed technology to create a basic 3D model, then made the full model with available resources. We had to use many power tools, wires and motors to make it a reality, but now we have a partially working prototype model. It doesn't have the sensor, as that wasn't readily available, but it does spin the compost and wash the recycling. 

We have plenty of ideas for redesigns and adjustments, but our product did showcase all of the thought and work we put into this project. This project used science and technology skills to build, and English skills to finally present to our class. 

To bring things back together, over the course of this unit, over the course of this unit I have read and analyzed informative texts to further my learning in ecology and have used credible resources to learn and inform readers, then used all of that knowledge to come up with an innovative solution to an environmental problem. The one thing that has stuck closest to mind is that humans are a powerful species, and we have control over the Earth, whether we like it or not. We have to work together to protect the other species for this planet and keep it habitable for all life. 

Research Paper: A Solution to Municipal Waste Accumulation

Emily Gonzalez

Tucker

Neto

N.E.W. Core

A Solution to Municipal Waste Accumulation

The United States’s predictions for the amount of landfill disposal rates per year was greatly underestimated in the year of 2012. The prediction of 262 million tonnes of landfill waste was off by 140 million tonnes (Estimates of solid waste disposal rates and reduction targets for landfill gas emissions Powell, Townsend, Zimmerman). The rapid accumulation of compostable and recyclable waste in landfills resulting from the disorganization of waste is causing other landfill waste to produce greenhouse gases and take longer to decompose; however, if a receptacle that could automatically organize waste was used in public spaces, it would significantly reduce the manual labor needed to organize waste.

Recyclable plastics and food waste are taking up space in landfills, producing methane emissions that warm the atmosphere. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, municipal solid waste (MSW), or anything found in a landfill, has been found to be 30% paper and 13% plastics (Environmental Protection Agency). This data points to how landfills are being built to towering heights. Both of these materials can be recycled, but since plastic regulations are different depending on the area, consumers do not know what to do with their plastics and there are several misconceptions about recycling paper. Even when people do know what to do with their waste, they may still not dispose of it properly. Dr. Jean C. Buzby, Chief of the Diet, Safety, and Health Economics Branch Economic Research Service at the USDA reports that in the United States in 2010, around 19% of food lost at the consumer level were fruit and 22% vegetables. This adds up to 12.5 billion pounds fruit and 18.2 billion pounds of vegetables lost in 2010(Overview of Food Loss in the United States). All of this produce could be composted into fertilizer and reused again. Instead, it is being thrown into the garbage so that it resides with other MSW. These billions of pounds of food, when crushed under other billions of pounds of paper, plastic and other waste, produce methane. The University of San Diego’s website, CalSpace, explains that methane is a greenhouse gas, that is produced under certain conditions when there is not sufficient oxygen. Just like carbon dioxide, it affects the warming of the atmosphere, but unlike the effects of carbon, a decrease in methane would have immediate effects(CalSpace). Since there is not a lot of oxygen under other waste, instead of food just decomposing, it creates methane. If people were able to immediately reduce the amount of food that went to landfills, this would have an immediate effect on the atmosphere. Landfills are full to the brim with paper, plastics and food because consumers choose to throw away their trash instead of any alternatives as it is the most convenient option.

Even when consumers make conscious choices about where their waste goes, they may end up throwing away waste into the wrong compartments, leading to unnecessary MSW.  Many consumers are unsure what to do with their plastics, which is clear from the statistic that “9.5 percent of plastics were recycled in 2013” (Environmental Protection Agency). There are many misconceptions about which materials are recyclable. The reality is that it varies by area, so the consumer would have to conduct research to find out what material their product is made out of and whether they should recycle it. Most consumers do not have the time to research everything that they throw away, so they throw it into the trash bin and it  ends up in a landfill.

Source: Biocycle

Article: State of Composting in the U.S.

The pie chart above displays the percentage of different composting facilities in the United States.  The majority of composting facilities recorded were for yard trimmings, while only 7% were food scraps. Many people are now aware that composting is an option, but they still do not compost food. Composting facilities for yard trimmings make it easy for people to put their yard waste in a bucket and not have to worry about it. They do not have this luxury with food scraps, which need to either be thrown into the trash or composted manually. MSW will continue to be on the rise as long as people do not understand that recycling plastics and composting their food is an option.

Since the majority of people are not composting or recycling their waste, it all collects in million tons of landfill waste which emits methane when kept under pressure, or releases toxic chemicals in the air when burned. After calculating the amount of waste in different landfills the EPA found that in the United States “about 258 million tons of MSW were generated. (...) over 33 million tons of MSW were combusted with energy recovery and 136 million tons were landfilled”.  These million tons of waste take up space and wreak havoc on the atmosphere. More and more municipal landfills need to be created to store all of this MSW. Areas that become landfills cannot be used for much else, since the waste permeates the area. Once waste ends up in a landfill, it has very few uses. It is either left to decompose and create methane under high amounts of pressure, or it is incinerated to make more space. The Environmental Protection Agency’s findings report that municipal landfills are one of the leading contributors to methane emissions, producing 89,650,353 metric tons. Since methane is a greenhouse gas, these 89 million metric tons are contributing to global warming. If food waste was composted, it would decompose normally. When it is packed in landfills under tons of pressure, it creates methane. This means that if food waste in landfills was immediately reduced, it would have an immediate effect on climate change. Many people have been blaming other contributors such as cars and factories, but food waste is another often overlooked contributor. One of the solutions to the constant growth and need of landfills is to incinerate waste. This seems effective at first glance, but can actually be more harmful to the environment. The organization Ecocycle, which looks to make communities have ‘zero waste’ or no waste, published a paper discussing how waste-to-energy is more harmful than most conceive. Multiple studies have shown that it releases harmful chemicals such as volatile organic compounds (VOC) and greenhouse gases, among other materials. These can be hazardous for respiratory health, development, and be more likely to cause cancer. Even if all waste was burnt, 25% of it would still be ashes (Waste of Energy). This defeats many of the purposes of using waste-to-energy. It still creates greenhouse gases just like methane and can actually release more harmful materials into the atmosphere. It makes it so that instead of this waste staying in landfills, it resides in the air. It doesn’t fix the problem, it just changes the waste into a different form of matter. Even so, since the ashes need to be buried, people still have to make space for them. Incineration leads to more health and environmental problems than most people are led to believe, making it an ineffective solution. Overall, once waste leaves the garbage can, it is left to rot and spoil, decomposing and creating methane. Many attempts to rid of municipal waste have led to more problems, but if this waste was recovered in its early stages, it could be redirected to recycling and composting facilities to be more effective in helping the environment.

A solution for this problem is a disposal bucket that automatically manages waste. The magazine, The Economist reports that companies have begun in 2015 to largely invest into, “recycling infrastructure. Walmart, Coca-Cola and eight other big companies have created a $100m Closed Loop Fund, which offers zero- and low-interest loans to cities and recycling companies for everything from better bins to more efficient sorting plants” (Recycling in America: In the Bin, The Economist). Since recycling has to do more with small scale municipal landfills, local power has the most effect on recycling. This is why these large companies have invested into cities and recycling management. Even these large companies know that recycling would be the best option for them because it costs less to produce recycled materials, but cities do not have the sufficient funds to invest in recycling programs. Every city has different policies and different amounts of available workforce. Even if there are more recycling programs, people at the consumer level may still throw their waste in the wrong compartment, wasting billions of pieces of plastic. Not to mention that recycling does not include the tons of food waste put in municipal waste daily.  The solution that has been proposed is a waste disposal container that automatically sorts waste depending on the molecular composition of the material. The bucket would have three compartments: one that washes recycling, one for compostable food waste and one for MCW. The container for food waste would automatically spin every few hours, keeping the new waste at the bottom and the soil at the top. The consumer will put their waste on a platform with a molecular sensor. Depending on the molecular composition, it will light up and open the corresponding compartment. The effects of this solution would be gradual, yet effective. Less workers would be needed to sort through the different types of waste and the consumer would not have to think at all. This would make more types of plastic recycled because people will know if it is recyclable and more food would be composted because of the option there. Money that is used to currently invest in recycling programs and regular bucket could be used to fund this solution since the first places this would be installed would be public areas, such as parks, beaches and schools. Just having the option of composting would reduce food waste by large amounts, since that is not a current option in public areas. The bucket would require little to no management, other than being emptied once every week or so and repaired if it was damaged. Even people with no experience of recycling or composting could easily use this solution. Bringing it all together, an effective solution to reduce the amount of food waste and recyclable materials in municipal landfills is an automatic waste management on a small scale. The problem starts at the consumer level, therefore, that is where this solution lies.

The solution provided could make a substantial difference in the enourmous amounts of food and recyclable waste thrown into municipal landfills each year. Reducing the amount of food and recyclables in landfills can reduce metric tons of methane emissions and the need to burn waste. Other methods to reduce the amount of waste often look at the problem as soon as it starts off from the landfill, or assume that people are aware of recycling and composting as options. With this solution, people will not have to be aware of the problem or solutions as a whole, but can still make an unconscious effort to defeat the growth municipal landfills.

Works Cited

"The Greenhouse Gases." The Greenhouse Gases. U.C. Davis, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2017

EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Gunders, Dana. "Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill." NRDC. NRDC, 15 Dec. 2016. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

"Reduce, Reuse, Recycle." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 04 Jan. 2017. Web. 04 Apr.

2017.

Dr. Jean Buzby, “Overview of Food Loss in the United States”. U.C. Davis. 2014. Web. 04 Apr.

2017.

https://www.ecocycle.org/files/pdfs/WTE_wrong_for_environment_economy_community_by_Eco-Cycle.pdf

"In the Bin." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 22 Apr. 2015. Web. 04 Apr. 2017.

Black Lives Matter - A Movement In America

#BlackLivesMatter 

(Discussion based off of this article by Wired discussing the Black Lives Matter Movement) 
One of the most controversial hashtags in recent history, long distance communication, especially with Social Media like Twitter, has shaped the civil rights movement.

There have always been forms of public outcry, but small scale microaggressions and injustices could not be easily reported until the internet came along. With the internet, people could post the hard evidence in the form of pictures and videos, forms of evidence that cannot be refuted in courts. People could learn the truth and see these injustices more clearly and protest, gathering in groups of safe spaces to be able to combat racism and other forms of oppression.

Social media has had its benefits to people in oppressed groups, but it's also had some repercussions. Many people are against the Black Lives Matter movement and others like it, saying it is an unnecessary movement of violence against white people. Many people will let their rage out by threatening people who support these movements in an attempt to silence them. If situations get worse, the person might get threatened in real life, or worse.

Social Media is an outlet to cry out against injustice, but there is nothing stopping other people from shouting back. With the creation of social media, it has helped empower a civil rights movement in all sorts of ways, but many people have been trying their hardest to silence their efforts. People should continue to use their right to free speech that leads to helpful discussion, and others should be able to answer back, but never to the level of threats.

In our class, we will be reading the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, which discusses racial issues and injustice, which is what the movement of what Black Lives Matter stands for. If the movement existed in the setting of To Kill a Mockingbird, I am sure that it would be mentioned more than once.

Deeper Dive Learning: Presentation Skills

One skill I still struggle with and need to learn more about is presentation skills. I have trouble speaking in front of people, so this video by The Mobile Studio Company that specializes in corporate videos and post production, helped me prepare for my upcoming presentation.

The Top 10 Tips Listed:
1) Focus on the audience
2) Delete all excess text from your slideshow presentation (Use pics instead)
3) Keep things simple
4) Rehearse
5) Make friends with the people of the venue
6) Dress to impress (dress smart)
7) Be comfortable
8) Stand still (act like your feet are glued to the floor)
9) Tell a story
10) Be enthusiastic!

This video helped me as a visual learner, as it used the tips listed to present this video. It used pictures and examples consistently, which helped me visualize how to create a proper presentation.

Honors Teachbacks: Fossil Fuels

Fossil Fuels: energy sources formed over millions of years under intense heat and/or pressure. Different conditions lead to different forms of fuel.

There are 3 main types of Fossil Fuels. 

Coal 

How is coal made?

380 million years of pressure. It starts as plant life from 3.29 billion years ago in the Coniferous period. The plant life got stuck in swamp water and couldn’t decompose properly.

Stages of Coal:

• Peat
• Lignite
• Subbituminous 
• Bituminous
• Anthracite

Oil 

Oil is made up of plankton, mostly zion.

Americans collect 9.4 billion cans of oil, meaning there are 352 million cans of oil every day. Each can is equal to 42 gallons. When oil is accidentally burned, it produces carbon dioxide, sulfur oxide. This is not nearly as dangerous as the oil spill itself, which kills millions of animals.

The mining process of oil releases carbon and a carbon tax might stop this.

Natural Gas 

Is formed under even more intense heat and pressure than either coal or oil, changing it to gas form.

Environmental Impacts

Air pollution: a mixture of solid particles and gasses in the air that can contaminate the atmosphere

Global Warming: the term used to describe a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth’s climate

(CO2) Emission: the production and discharge of something, especially gas or radiation

Coal leads to smog, acid rain, air pollution, toxins. A ⅓  of our carbon dioxide emissions come from coal-fired power plants.

Lead, arsenic, and mercury are released into the atmosphere with the burning of coal, each of which is disastrous to health.

Oil is used to power vehicles and make plastics. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is released, which contributes to global warming when oil is burned. It can also release sulfur which leads to acid rain.

Oil can destroy the insulating ability of fur animals and water repellency of birds.

The main contributor to CO2 emissions are cars, which use oil.

Alternative Energy Sources

Coal, natural gas, oil -> old energy resources

Fossil fuels are formed over hundreds of millions of years, composed of decomposed organic matter and certain conditions create certain fossil fuels.

Renewable resource: a substance that can be replenished just as fast it is being drawn out and used (fossil fuels are not a renewable resource)

Energy efficiency: The corresponding amount of energy produced by a given amount of fuel

How much do we really use?

Equivalent of 11 billion tons of oil in fossil fuels per year

4 billion tons of oil every year

By 2088, we are expected to run out of most fossil fuels

Clean energy source: an energy that does not pollute the atmosphere when used

Solar, wind turbines, biomass (plants, paper, wood, clothing), tidal energy, geothermal

Alternatives and why aren’t we using them?

Wind, solar, biomass and geothermal are all renewable sources; however, their energy yield is much lower than fossil fuels

Political Ramifications of Energy Sources

Export: when a product is taken to another country

Fossil fuels: hydrocarbons trapped under the surface of the earth

Energy-dependence: not producing all of our own fuels

Continents with most Energy Resources

Middle East: Oil

Asia and Australia: Coal

China burns the most coal, which is why it's highly polluted

North America: Natural Gas

Economy and the Environment

When the cost is high for oil companies, its low for us

When the cost is low for companies, the cost is high for us

There is no perfect energy source

Fossil fuels: energy dense but leads to global climate change

Renewable sources: highly energy inefficient

Hydropower: efficient but leads to problems in the water environment

Conclusion

According to what we have learned today, I conclude that methanol and ethanol would be the most efficient ways to harness energy if we figure out a way to produce enough energy sufficient corn to produce it.